[WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

Sat Oct 25 06:03:23 UTC 2003

Delirium (Mark) wrote in part:

>There are some fundamental
>disagreements about what sorts of things should be in Wikipedia (for
>example, [[List of multiracial people]]), and somehow these have to be
>resolved.  I'm not sure "just don't delete any of them" is the best
>resolution (another easy one would be "delete all lists", but I don't
>think that's particularly good either--though it might not be any worse
>than "leave all lists", really).

I'm convinced that some of these lists, even ones that I've defended,
have been created by trolls (less newbie than they pretend to be)
trying to test Wikipedia's policy or accuse us of hypocrisy or bias.
If deletion was not such a big deal -- by being more wiki in nature --
then it would be easier to ignore (that is, don't feed) the trolls.

I think that Wikipedia has too many pointless lists.
But if they're being created by people that are actually interested,
rather than by people that are out to prove a point, then they're harmless.
So I vote ("vote" verb used in OED sense 9b) "leave all lists" --
with the exception of those that would be deleted for some other reason.
(After all, one should never leave "all" unqualified.)

-- Toby